View full sizeTwo Tillamook 7th graders on a school outing to see "The Hobbit" found this Beretta handgun when it fell from a seat at the Coliseum Theatre in Tillamook.Tillamook Police Department

All Gary Quackenbush wanted to do was take his wife to see "The Hobbit." Instead he found himself in an uncomfortable seat, bored by a long film and pained by a tender tailbone. When the closing credits finally rolled, Quackenbush couldn't wait to get out of the Tillamook movie house.

It wasn't until he arrived home in Tillamook that he realized the 1941 model Beretta given to him by his father was missing -- worked loose from the holster on his hip by all his shifting in the seat.

And that's how it was that seventh-graders Levi Crabtree and Kolton McKinney -- on a school field trip Wednesday to the Coliseum Theatre -- found the loaded gun. It fell from the seat when one of the students pushed the seat down. The boys stayed back and called for a teacher, who called police.

On Thursday, Quackenbush, 61, apologized for the scare and said he was up all night worrying about his missing gun.

Police are now holding the pistol as evidence and have revoked Quackenbush's concealed handgun permit.

Quackenbush said he carried the permit and weapon because of shootings such as the one at Clackamas Town Center and Sandy Hook Elementary School. He's also a licensed gun dealer, but said he does very little selling and mostly steers buyers to good websites.

"You go into a mall and all of a sudden there is this jackass psycho killing people," he said. "I'll stand in front of a kid and take the bullet, but I'm going to take him out, too."

Tillamook Police Chief Terry Wright said he's recommending that Tillamook County prosecutors charge Quackenbush with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it wouldn't affect his gun-selling license.

"This is not something we can just blow off," Wright said, noting that the gun had a bullet in the chamber and the safety was off.

District Attorney Bill Porter wouldn't comment on the case, other than to say it was under investigation.

Quackenbush said the safety was on when the gun was on his hip. His father brought back the Beretta from Italy in 1944 or 1945, he said. His father had witnessed the execution of Mussolini and later took the gun off a Nazi police officer, he said.

"He gave it to me when I was 2 years old, then he locked it up until I was 14. He took me out in the forest and trained me," Quackenbush said. "Then he locked it up again until I was 19. He wanted to scare me with the power of a weapon so I would have a reluctance to ever use it and it stuck with me."

After Quackenbush discovered the gun was missing Tuesday night, he tried repeatedly to call the theater, but got no answer, he said.

In a letter to the editor he shared with The Oregonian, he wrote: "By 11:10 I gave up but continued to pace the floor until dawn. I was sure they were busy cleaning up and couldn't hear the phone.

"Wednesday I made sure I was at the movie house before their normal opening only to find that a school group had been there earlier. I had them call the police to inform them I was there to recover my property. Much to my shock the officer had a trail of media on his heels five minutes later. How they got there from Portland baffled me."

He closed the letter by writing: "This whole episode is unfortunate for all involved and I truly regret any distress this may have caused. ... You all have my most sincere apologies for the mishap and rest assured my intent is for the betterment and security of my friends and neighbors in Tillamook and nothing else."

Still, the man whose passion is writing whimsical stories and who looks forward to retiring after running a local market for years, ponders how he's now cast as a "malevolent criminal."

"You have people shooting up malls, building bombs," he said. "And I'm the bad guy."